Debbie Reynolds

By the early 1960s, good roles for an aging ingénue were
becoming scarce and Debbie struggled to find material suited to her talents.

In
Paramount's MY SIX LOVES (1963) she plays a successful stage actress on
the verge of collapse who goes to Connecticut to rest and ends up adopting
six orphans and romancing the local minister. Directed by Debbie's
former MGM contemporary Gower Champion,
the comedy was criticized for its cloying cheerfulness and marked the
beginning of a distinct decline in Debbie's film career.

Her next film,
Warner Bros.'s film
adaptation of Jean Kerr's hit Broadway comedy MARY, MARY (1963), about a
recently divorced couple who attempt to break up each other's new romances,
provided better source material, but Debbie's performance in the film was
preceded by the reputation of the play's star, Barbara Bel Geddes, and
reviewers did not compare the two performances in Debbie's favor.

In 1964, Debbie vigorously fought for and won the title role in MGM's
film adaptation of Meredith Wilson's western musical THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY
BROWN, the true story of an uneducated orphan from rural Colorado who
marries a man with a silver mine and attempts to crash Denver society with
her newfound wealth. Despite the presence of Harve Presnell who had
starred in the stage show, Debbie essentially carries the picture
single-handedly with her ever-present vitality, never letting up until the
curtain comes down. Playing Molly Brown (one of her favorite film
characters) for all she's worth, Debbie was even recognized by the Academy
of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with a Best Actress nomination for her
efforts. And though Debbie didn't win the award, MOLLY BROWN ranked
among the top three money-making films of 1964, providing a much needed
boost to her declining career.

Debbie in another of her raucous rural tomboy roles, THE
UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN, based on a real-life character who rose from rural
Colorado to join the international social scene and even survived the
sinking of the Titanic in 1912.

Still More Memorable Quotations:

"Well, if giving your bathroom shower curtains to the Hungarian Relief isn't kookie, I'd
like to know what is." --as Nell Nash in THE GAZEBO.

"I wish this had happened in Los Angeles...
They're always finding bodies out there. They don't think anything
of it." --as Nell Nash in THE GAZEBO.

"Tell me something. What does it take to
convince you you're not wanted? A gun?" --as Maggie Putnam in IT STARTED
WITH A KISS.

"Well, we finally agree on something. Falling
in love is no reason to get married." --as Maggie Putnam in IT STARTED
WITH A KISS.

"It ain't the money I love, Pa. It's the not
havin' any I hate." --as Molly Brown in THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN.

"You're no prize. Where I come from we drown
runts of the litter like you." --as Molly Brown in THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY
BROWN.

"I can sing the hogs out of the hills." --as Molly
Brown in THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN.

Later that year, Debbie played the beautiful blonde
reincarnation of a murdered gangster who comes back to haunt Tony Curtis (at
left with Debbie and Pat Boone) in GOODBYE CHARLIE (1964). Directed by
Vincente Minnelli with whom, for all their time together at MGM,
Debbie had never worked, this adaptation of George Axelrod's popular stage
comedy fell flat on film.

In 1966, Debbie starred as the title character in MGM's
THE SINGING NUN, another musical based on a real-life character, this time a
Belgian nun who made a hit record of religious songs and even appeared on
TV's "The Ed Sullivan Show." Also featuring the MGM-of-old presence of
Greer Garson,
Agnes Moorehead and Ricardo
Montalban, THE SINGING NUN was short on plot and considered archaically
wholesome by mid-sixties audiences, but sustained itself with Debbie's
recordings of Soeur Sourire's hit songs, including "Brother John" and
"Dominique."

Now in her mid-thirties, Debbie played a character her
own age in DIVORCE AMERICAN STYLE (1967), a well-received black comedy about
a couple (Debbie and Dick Van Dyke)
who find being married to each other easier than being divorced. Also
featuring Jason Robards, Jean Simmons
and Van Johnson, DIVORCE AMERICAN STYLE provided another brief buoy to
Debbie's sagging film career and earned an Oscar nomination for its
screenwriters, Robert Kaufman and Norman Lear.